Reviews tagging 'Death'

A Dreadful Splendor by B.R. Myers

22 reviews

lemonsaurus's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Death, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Trafficking, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Pregnancy

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Terminal illness, Police brutality, and Fire/Fire injury

mels_reading_log's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book follows Jenny, who is a spiritualist that performs seances for the rich as a ruse to steal from them. She knows ghosts aren’t real. When she is arrested and her only chance for to avoid the gallows is to perform one last reading, she agrees. That is until she gets to the home and realizes it may actually be haunted. 

Not at any point could I predict how this mystery was going to pan out. This book was wild. I liked how it was spooky but not enough to give you nightmares.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship and Violence

Moderate: Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexism, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Suicide and Fire/Fire injury

prettiestwhistles's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Confinement, Death, Mental illness, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Police brutality, Grief, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Incest, Miscarriage, Blood, Medical content, and Dementia

Several characters are described as "mad," including one encountered directly in the narrative. While her condition is never specified, she experiences auditory hallucinations and is killed while trying to murder the protagonist. The narrator attributes the violence to her illness.

laura_awkward_fox's review

adventurous mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body horror, Death, and Murder

Minor: Miscarriage

mary_trot's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism and Mental illness

clarabooksit's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness and Violence

Moderate: Death, Sexism, Suicide, Blood, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Classism

Minor: Incest and Slavery

mattiedancer's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Writing: 3⭐️/5 

The writing in this novel is fine. Near the end – or the further I got into the book – the more Myers seemed to find a writing flow. However, a couple chapters or so into the book, I realized that several paragraphs were formatted nearly the same length with sentences of exactly (or nearly exactly) the same length with the same rhythm. Once I noticed this, it was hard to keep reading as it gave a very boring, dry sound to every piece of action, despite the story being utterly compelling. Eventually, this kind of fell away, but it never fully left, and it really struck me as quite hard to continue reading.

Characters: 3.5⭐️/5

Alright, so the characters are interesting, but also inconsistent at various points. I felt like some of the backstory was thrown in almost too conveniently and it gave a lack of polish to the characters. However, I did find our MC and our main love interest compelling and – as the story continued – they grew nicely (if conveniently) enough to keep me engaged and happy.

Plot: 4⭐️/5 

The plot started strong. We have a crooked medium who robs her clients in order to pay her rent. We have a conveniently rich man who has need of her fake services. And we have a murder – or suicide? – that we need to solve. Compelling, right? I loved the main plot. For as predictable as some turns were, it remained fun and fresh in feeling enough to keep me thoroughly engaged. However, my main gripe is with the ending, which felt like way too much, too soon. For some reason, Myers chose to use about the final 20-30 pages to wrap up every little thread possible – including several that really should have been left alone. The overwriting of the ending was hard to deal with, especially after a fun journey.

Who Should Read This Book? 

• Fans of fantasy and mystery novels
• Fans of mystery novels looking for a fresh plot
• Fans of historical mystery novels with a side dish of romance
• Readers of the above persuasion looking for plot overwriting

Content Warnings? 

Murder, gaslighting, mental illness, stalking, police brutality (minor), child abuse, death, pregnancy, miscarriage, incest, violence, injury, injury detail, blood, grief, gore, confinement, drowning, infidelity, toxic relationship, misogyny, sexism, slavery (minor), emotional abuse, physical abuse, suicide, animal death (minor)

Post-Reading Rating:  3.5⭐️/5

Oh, if only it hadn’t tried to wrap up every tiny thread in the last bit of the novel, I could have loved it so much more.

Final Rating: 3.5⭐️/5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Slavery, and Police brutality

aturb92's review

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Death of parent

Minor: Miscarriage

lilacs_book_bower's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Even though I correctly guessed every revelation to this mystery, I still really enjoyed it!  The characterization was nice, the story moved along at a good clip, our heroine was smart and independent, but it didn't feel cliche.  I think people probably could have figured out the mystery for themselves a bit sooner.  Spoiler about the villainous plan:

Did they really think no one would recognize her when they came back?  I don't think they thought things through very well./

. Also, I have some quibbles about the way the author wrote inheritance and entailment issues.  There were a couple times where I thought, "I don't think that is right?"  They took me out of the story momentarily, but I was able to move past them to enjoy the story.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Confinement, Death, Gore, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

bessadams's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Death of parent, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Gun violence, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Police brutality, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Mental illness and Miscarriage